Comments
AMSTERDAM November 2020 saw the conclusion in Schiphol, the Dutch airport near Amsterdam, to the pre-trial hearings in the case being brought by the Dutch Prosecution Service against three Russians (Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy, Oleg Pulatov) and one Ukrainian (Leonid Kharchenko), former military leaders of the Donetsk People’s Republic. They were charged with the delivery of a Russian Buk-Telar missile launcher that was allegedly used by separatists in eastern Donbass to shoot down civilian Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, with the ensuing loss of 298 lives.
Following the Court’s consideration in March and April 2021 of defense requests for further investigation, which it would allow, the main trial itself was scheduled to begin on June 7, 2021, in the District Court of The Hague. Regardless of its outcome, I shall argue that this trial and all the major stages that preceded it – notably, the Dutch Safety Board (DSB